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Rhea Ripley
In 2017, Rhipley signed with the WWE. It was announced that she would compete in the inaugural Mae Young Classic. Ripley eliminated Miranda Salinas in the first round but lost to Dakota Kai in the second round. Ripley made her NXT television debut on 25 October 2017 episode of NXT, participating in a battle royal to determine one of the contenders for the vacant NXT Women's Championship at NXT TakeOver: WarGames, which was won by Nikki Cross. Sporting a new look, Ripley competed in the second annual Mae Young Classic in 2018 and finished in the semi-finals, defeating MJ Jenkins, Kacy Catanzaro, and Tegan Nox before losing to Io Shirai. Throughout the tournament, Ripley displayed a new attitude, one of which declining to shake her opponent's hand before the match and more aggressive and remorseless from the previous year, establishing herself as a heel in the process. Shortly after her participation in the Mae Young Classic, Ripley was announced as part of the women's roster in the newly created NXT UK brand. During the television tapings of the show in August (that aired throughout November), Ripley took part of an eight woman tournament for the inaugural NXT UK Women's Championship. She went on to defeat Xia Brookside in the first round, Dakota Kai in the semi finals, and Toni Storm in the finals to become the inaugural champion. With the win, Ripley also became the first Australian to ever hold a women's championship in WWE. In October, Ripley also competed before the first ever all women's pay–per–view, Evolution, where she successfully retained her title against Dakota Kai in a dark match (due to the tournament airing a month later). Throughout her championship reign, Ripley went on to fend off title contenders such as Isla Dawn and Deonna Purrazzo. At NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool, she lost her title to Toni Storm ending her reign at 139 days. At the Royal Rumble, she debuted on the main roster by entering the Women's Royal Rumble at number 24. She eliminated Kacy Catanzaro, Dana Brooke, and Zelina Vega before being eliminated by Bayley. For the most part of 2019, Ripley started a feud with a debuting Piper Niven over who's the most dominant woman in the NXT UK roster. The two finally squared off in a match on the July 3, 2019 episode of NXT UK where Niven defeated Ripley. On the August 28, 2019 episode of NXT, Ripley made her return when she interrupted NXT Women's Champion Shayna Baszler. Swiping the microphone from Baszler before she could even talk, Ripley said that Baszler may have beaten everyone on NXT, but she hadn't beater her, signalling a feud between the two. On the November 1 episode of SmackDown, Ripley and Tegan Nox were one of the many NXT wrestlers to invade the show, challenging Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville to a tag-team match, which Ripley and Nox emerged victorious. Later that night, Ripley joined Triple H and the rest of the NXT roster as they declared war on both ''Raw'' and SmackDown, and vowed to win the 2019 Survivor Series brand warfare. At NXT TakeOver: WarGames, she led Team Ripley (herself, Candice LeRae, Dakota Kai and Nox) to victory over Team Baszler (Shayna Baszler, Io Shirai, Bianca Belair, and Kay Lee Ray) in a WarGames match despite Kai betraying and attacking Nox. The following night at Survivor Series, she was part of Team NXT which beat Team Raw and Team SmackDown. She scored the victory for her team by defeating Sasha Banks. On the December 18 episode of NXT, Ripley won the NXT Women's Championship from Baszler. This made her the first female superstar to have won both the NXT Women’s and NXT UK Women’s Championships.Category:NXT UK Superstars Category:NXT UK Women's Champions Category:NXT Superstars Category:NXT Women's Champions Category:Current Champions